Between Love and Skate 7/?Author: dettiotRating: TSummary: After an injury ends his chances for a career in professional hockey, Oliver Queen doesn’t know what he’s going to do. And then he gets an offer to become a figure skater and partner with a beautiful, babbling blonde skater: Felicity Smoak. With a gold medal at the Olympics on the line, can love stick its landing? Disclaimer: I don’t own Arrow. No copyright infringement intended.Author’s Note: Lots going on in this chapter! But this one is going to set up the ending of the fic, which I think will be soon. But until then, I hope you enjoy today’s piece of the story.

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Even with the pressure and worry of competing in the Olympics, Oliver looked forward to the Opening Ceremonies. Marching with the rest of the hockey team was one of his best memories of four years ago—one of the few memories from before that hadn’t been tainted by his injury. Because it was a time when he felt like he was part of something bigger than himself, because he was representing his country.

So after finding out that Felicity had never participated in the Opening Ceremonies and didn’t intend to do so this time either, Oliver wasn’t going to let her miss out. Things might still be weird between them, unsettled and full of unspoken words. But he thought, after their moment in the physical therapy room, that there was hope. And Felicity had said she wanted experiences. Admittedly, it was experiences she had missed out on because she was competing in the Olympics, like college and one-night stands. But still, he was damned if she didn’t get to have one of the best parts of being an Olympian.

Taking a deep breath and adjusting his grip on the duffle bag he was carrying, Oliver knocked on the door to Felicity’s room. All of them were staying in a house just outside Pyeonchang—no Olympic Village for Felicity, her parents had said, which was another one of Oliver’s good memories from the last Games. But he hadn’t argued too much about staying in luxury accommodations, instead of in a room that wasn’t much better than his college dorm.

Felicity opened the door and her eyes went wide at the sight of him. “Oliver … what are you wearing?”

As much as I’d like to suggest using the old Nidoqueen+Nidoking deck for this because it’s Valentine’s Day, I have to admit, I really can’t. Those didn’t really do anything well, though Nidoking was the better card of the two. Nidoking, on its own merits, was enough to get a review, however, and don’t worry about Nidoqueen. She’ll get plenty of time eventually, considering she had multiple spectacular cards in later sets.

Nidoking’s stats were okay, though not great. 90 HP on a Stage 2 was pretty good, and it avoided most KOs. Even with the nasty Psychic weakness, Mewtwo couldn’t take it out in one hit. Espeon could KO a charged up Nidoking, however, so that was a pain. The ugly thing here was that retreat cost of 3. It wasn’t switching out much without Trainer cards.

Thrash wasn’t all that spectacular, really. For 1 Grass and 2 Colorless Energies, it did 30 damage. The coin flip was interesting: If heads, it did 10 more damage, but if tails, it did 10 to itself. It was kind of like a riskier, but possibly more rewarding, version of Scyther’s Slash, except Scyther had a ton of other reasons to be used. Nidoking had just one niche.

That niche was its second attack. Toxic did a weak 20 damage for 3 Grass Energy, but amazingly, it turned out to be a good thing. There was a time where Mr. Mime was everywhere, as it blocked anything that did more than 30 damage. Scyther basically did nothing, as did the likes of Mewtwo and Blastoise. Nidoking, however, did 20 damage with a special effect: The defending Pokemon was not only Poisoned, but took 20 damage instead of 10 between turns! Suddenly, Nidoking, despite a weakness to Mr. Mime’s type, was basically the only Pokemon that could KO a full-health Mr. Mime in one turn. Mr. Mime didn’t have time for a counterattack.

Other than that, however, Nidoking wasn’t as good as many other cards. If Mr. Mime was known to rule an area where a tournament was, this could be pretty useful to run a deck with. If not, it really wasn’t worth it. It was metagaming at its finest, and 95% of the time, it was left behind. It was pretty amazing when it worked, however, and it probably felt amazing to predict a field correctly.